So what did I learn at the first sommelier course lesson? Apart from the party trick of how to open a bottle of champagne by chopping the top off the bottle with a knife, I learned that I have to smell everything. I must have only been fake smelling before. One of the wines we tasted was a Vernaccia di San Gimignano. When the instructor asked what it smelled like, I ventured, ‘Grapefruit’. He didn’t even deign to look at me. Someone from the back shouted, ‘Apple’. ‘Apple’, repeated the instructor approvingly. Back home, I went on a search for the apple that smells like grapefruit, buying up every variety in the village shop.

Golden delicious, Jaime and Granny Smith

With a bit of imagination Granny Smith came closest to grapefruit. Over on the internet on an Australian website, I found that apples and grapefruits contain both malic acid and citric acid, but when I tried to find out what causes the typical apple odour, none of Google’s suggestions helped and one got me wondering what other objects I need to smell: ‘The scent of an Apple product, sourcing the MacBook Pro fragrance’.Any advice about wine and apples?

Blood oranges have character and flaunt their diversity; every morning as I cut open two of them, I watch with anticipation to see what colour and patterns are hiding inside. There are three varieties of the arancia rossa di Sicilia (red orange of Sicily): Tarocco, Moro and Sanguinello. They usually appear in my village shop from the end of December until March. The Sanguinello gets redder as it ripens and when the really bloody ones arrive, I squeeze them with a tinge of regret that the season is nearly over.

Oval Tarocco

Mostly orange

Hint of red

Streaks of red

Rosy orange

Fully ripe Sanguinello

It's hard to start the day without fresh squeezed orange juice (and caffè)